For this exercise, I wanted to capture street scenes whilst I was out and about on holiday in Tuscany.  Whilst this might sound like I was simply taking holiday photographs, this could not be further from the truth. 

In Assignment 1 for this module, as per the brief, I took portraits of complete strangers and this was a first for me.  Street photography is the same.  On holiday I would normally go out of my way to avoid taking pictures of people, in case they objected.  So being on holiday and taking pictures with people in would be a whole new experience for me.

In taking these images what I wanted to capture was tourists and their interaction with the location. 

Images

What Did I Learn

I had a lot of trepidation taking these images, choosing to photograph groups meant that I felt there was a high chance of being spotted by one of the group.  

As it happened, nobody said a word.  Perhaps particularly because I was taking photographs in tourist destinations, it meant that it was more typical for somebody to be stood taking photographs than it would in other scenarios.  However, all of these shots are taken in a way that meant I was very overtly pointing the camera at them.

Having completed the exercise, I now look back at it and realised that I enjoyed it.  What I am particularly taken by is that normally I would not dare to take photographs such as these and yet, I feel that they capture part of my holiday more than I otherwise might have.  Putting the holiday aside, the learning is that capturing the people at a location can enhance the capture of the location itself.  It is the combination of the people and the location that is creating each of these images.

From a methodology perspective, I think observation is critical.  Photographing tourist scenes can be done with little thought (if one doesn’t care about the quality).  All too often, one might see a tourist arrive, whip out a camera, point in the general direction, take the snap, and go.  To capture people, or groups of people, requires considered observation, even for street genre which might typically be more spontaneous than other forms.  Completing this exercise, I have learned to stop and just watch a scene and the people in it until something of merit forms in my head or develops in front of me.  For all these scenes, I was probably at the scene for a good 20 minutes before capturing anything.  

When a scene did unfold, I was keen to strike a balance between subject and background.  I did vary this ratio for each image as for some, such as ‘Family relaxing on bench’, the subject was everything whereas for others, such as ‘Tourist Group on Segways’, the background was just as important as the group because I felt I saw a parallel between the group and the statues.  All this says that it is important to maintain awareness of what it is you are trying to capture even when there probably are only a few seconds to secure the image.